


The Best Man Reject

by CallYourGirlfriend



Category: All Time Low (Band), Bandom
Genre: Conversations, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jalex - Freeform, M/M, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Past Relationship(s), Relationship Negotiation, Relationship Study, Secret Relationship, Sex, Sick Alex Gaskarth, Slice of Life, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Weddings, alex's panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 20:36:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20552330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallYourGirlfriend/pseuds/CallYourGirlfriend
Summary: “Are you upset I made Rian best man? Or are you upset that I got married at all?”





	The Best Man Reject

**Author's Note:**

> A cry for attention so stunningly Jack that, even on his wedding day, Alex can't ignore it.

The day Alex announces Rian as his best man, Jack immediately goes online and orders buttons that read “The Best Man Reject.” He overnights 20 of them in an assortment of neon colors and pays extra to have half of them light up. The day they ship out, Jack sits on his porch like a kid on Christmas Eve. 

He’s nice enough to wait until after the photos to pin all 20 buttons to his lapel, set half of them flashing, and raid the open bar for a full bottle of whiskey. It’s Jack and Jack tonight, or rather, Jack and The Best Man Reject. 

He’s not a little bit drunk when Rian stands up to give his PG-rated, tear-jerker of a best man toast_ . _ Jack figures all his assurances about Alex’s loyalty and selflessness make him a great character witness if Alex ever kills someonee. While Jack, with his whiskey-weak tongue, would rather help Alex hide the body. Hell, he may even be the body, if he’s not careful. 

But Jack is careful, always has been with Alex. That’s why when Rian catches sight of Jack’s neon, flashing cry for attention and accuses him of wearing his jealousy on his sleeve. Jack politely informs him that it’s actually his _ lapel _ that’s wearing anything. Thank you very much. Rian frowns like they need to Talk About This, but Jack just hands him a drink and a button. 

It’s not Rian Jack’s after. 

He’s also not after the three single blondes and one semi-single brunette from Lisa’s bridal party who come up to him, just lonely enough to be desperate, offering comfort. He grinds with all of them, pinning buttons to their bra straps like calling cards. He even cops a pity blow job in the bathroom from the brunette, but turns her down when she whispers she’s got a room upstairs. 

She’s still not what he’s after. 

Jack is antagonizing the little old ladies, getting them hammered on Lisa's fancy French wine and gossiping with them about what _ really _ should have been in Rian’s toast, when Alex finally starts side-eyeing Jack with the intensity of an angry mom whose toddler is misbehaving in public. 

Jack would be pissed his little charade hasn't earned him more than one of Alex's mardy _ looks, _ but there really hasn't been time for more. Alex hasn’t sat down once since taking his place at the altar. He stood stoic through Lisa’s dad’s slightly threatening congratulatory speech, and shed but one Man Tear when his own father mentioned how glad he was to see “his only son” become a man. When the reception started, he diligently trotted behind Lisa kissing babies, shaking hands with plus-ones and making jokes with third cousins. 

How fucking predictable is it that, even at his own wedding, Alex still plays the frontman. He's always worn responsibility like armor. Give him an audience, and he suits up. So when Alex finally hands over his hosting duties to Lisa, anointing Rian as her sycophantic side-kick, Jack can say that the buttons worked. Like a moth to flame. Here comes Alex to Jack. 

“I bet your ears are burning,” Jack says when Alex finally cuts through the crowd to where he's telling torrid tales about his best friend. “I was just showing Deloris here your nude scene in Straight to DVD--”

“From what I’ve heard, Aunt Didi knows her way around a penis,” Alex interrupts. “But go on Jack, show her yours so she can understand why only _ mine _ made the final cut.” 

Deloris blushes, and Jack knows he’s been outmaneuvered. It's why when Alex grabs two beers from a waiter and tilts his head towards a back table, Jack waves the white flag and follows him. They settle themselves in silence, an oddly comfortable state for two people who talk as much as Jack and Alex. But it’s something they’ve done well since the early days when Jack decided he believed the kid with the perfect hair and skinniest jeans and dark family secret when he said one day they’d be _those guys_ from that one band. 

Jack likes to think he was the only one who believed in Alex but, if he’s honest, there was always Lisa too. 

AlexandLisa happened about the same time as JackandAlex, so Jack can’t say he was there first. But he can say that he was there when Lisa wasn’t. And there was a time when AlexandLisa were Alex. Lisa. They weren’t good times. For anyone. When Jack talks about it with Alex, which is only late driving through the square states on tour, they laugh about it. Mostly. 

Sometimes they just drink about it. 

It’s during those conversations that Jack can’t believe all that Lisa missed. He’s pretty sure she knows about Alex’s panic attacks now, but she wasn’t there to press cold napkins against Alex’s neck as he vomited in venue bathrooms across the nation. She’ll never really know how it feels to watch helplessly as Alex suffocates in a room full of air. 

When he lets himself consider it, Jack’s outright mad Lisa skipped out on the Dirty Work Era. 

She’d left Jack to deal with insomniac Alex who’d just as soon breakdown crying as start throwing punches. He’d dialed Lisa a hundred times then, but couldn’t be sure if she’d help or hurt. In the end, Jack weathered it alone -- taking Alex’s phone if he didn’t eat and denying him his guitar if he wouldn’t sleep. Alex hated Jack, but Jack knows hate is a cousin of love. 

Which is why he forgives Lisa her absence, her weakness. She couldn’t sit Alex down and tell him this wasn’t working. That he couldn’t keep chasing Zoloft with Patron, chasing another album with another tour. She loved him too much. But so did Jack, and that’s _ why _he did it. He’d rather lose Alex then let his love for his best friend matter more than his well-being. 

But now, watching Alex get married, Jack’s passing the baton. From that first day in high school when Jack made a point to befriend the aloof new kid who said his vowels funny, to Alex’s bachelor party when he smiled through what felt like the end of the world, Jack’s done the best he can to get Alex to this moment. 

“So, I, uh--”

“Lisa says she found Kara crying in the bathroom,” Alex interrupts. “That your doing?”

“No,” Jack sighs, picking at the label on his beer bottle. The band’s switched to 80s songs now. It won’t be long before people start coming up to Alex to say goodbye. “Can’t say that one was me. Though I’m flattered you think I have a chance with Kara.” 

Alex smiles, rueful. “You asking to play Odds?” 

They haven’t played Odds in years. The stupid game they devised to get an over/under on each’s other’s chances of getting laid back when neither of them could tell their dick from their armpit disappeared the moment Lisa came back in the picture and cropped Jack out entirely. The idea of playing again makes Jack’s blood rush a bit too quickly. 

“I did get a BJ from a different brunette tonight, which means luck’s on my side,” Jack says. “So why not. Give me your ballpark.” 

Alex takes a pull from his beer and seems to genuinely consider his answer. “Are we pretending she’s not married right now?” 

“If I can do it with you, why not?” Jack says. Alex looks at him questioningly, but doesn’t take the bait. Jack swallows hard, lets it be for now, and says, “Seriously, tell me my odds.”

Alex puts his beer down, wiping the condensation off his hands on the pristine white table cloth. “I’d say you have about a 75-80 percent shot.”

“That high?” 

Alex shrugs. “The breakdown makes sense. You get 20 percent simply because she’s already fucked you and knows she’ll be disappointed.”

Jack snorts. “I’m better in bed than when I was 15.”

It's a testament to their closeness, and the boundaries they’ve crossed, that Alex raises his beer in knowing acknowledgment. “I gave you 30 percent because she’s had about two more drinks than she should. Ten percent because I’ve seen her without her ring on before. And another 15 to 20 percent simply because she’s got a thing for fucking everyone in All Time Low.”

Jack’s eyebrows disappear in his hairline. “You slept with Kara?”

“During one of the Off-Again phases.”

Jack nods at Alex’s shorthand for the cycle of six weeks off, three months on that Alex and Lisa had gone through for the past 10 years. There’s a lot of girls who’d been Off-Again favorites. Jack, however, was the only one that Alex kept coming back to. 

Another beat passes and Jack thinks maybe his worst fear is coming true. That he and Alex will only ever have meaningless bro talk between them when, finally, Alex asks after the buttons. 

Jack’s only got one left on his lapel. He takes it off as he explains how he thought it’d piss off Rian and he was right. “That little vein on his forehead popped and everything. Serves him right for puking in my Nikes 10 years ago. Plus...they’re funny.” 

But Alex is hardly laughing. “So telling on me to my relatives and getting off with Lisa’s half-married friend is what? The punchline to this joke?” 

Jack sighs at how this has become A Moment. “It’s not my fault I had to piss you off to make you quit _ performing _ and come talk to me. So you’re here now, cut the shit and ask me what you really want to know--”

“Are you upset I made Rian best man? Or are you upset that I got married at all?” 

Jack figures one implies the other, but Alex apparently wants closure for both. “The way I see it,” Jack begins, “is that if I’d been up there toasting your marital bliss, you’d be filing for divorce right now. Unless, of course, you told Lisa about what we did last night--”

“Shhh,” Alex hisses, cheeks pink. “Fucking A. Don’t think my deaf great-aunt heard you.”

Jack smiles, reaching for the button. “Truth is, I don’t think of myself as a reject, not really.” He pins the button to Alex’s lapel. “But only because I don’t think I was ever a choice.” 

Alex fiddles with the button, an uncomfortable emotion making his fingers thick. “You know that’s only because...because--" Alex breaks off, swallows like his stomach is crawling up in his throat. "You can't really expect me to share you with everyone like that? I can’t...I won’t--I don’t _ want _ to give them that. You know me too well.” 

That’s a lot of Alex doublespeak, and Jack’s a bit too drunk to fully decode it, but he thinks he gets it. If only because he gets Alex. “You realize I can’t let you make me just some tux in one of your fucking photos.” 

Alex nods. “I'm sorry. I...it's harder than I thought. Being in this world and...being in our world.” 

Jack gets that, but what he gets even more is that Alex still wants to be a part of his world -- their world. He sits back, oddly relieved, and smiles. “So...real talk,” he starts, chasing their Moment away. “How do my odds increase if I pitch it to Kara as a threesome with her, the groom and the best man reject?” 

“Jesus Christ Jack!” Alex exclaims, covering his burning cheeks. “What the fuck?”

And they’re back. 


End file.
